I don't usually post the aahs news, but they are trying to adopt 60 animals over the course of the weekend.

more below...

May 29,2008

Greetings!

This weekend is a very important weekend at AAHS - and it's a weekend that could truly make a lifesaving difference for many of the animals in our care. Please read on to learn more about our urgent situation.

The shelter, adoption center and foster homes are bursting at the seams because adoptions are down and intake has remained steady. With more than sixty adoptable animals in our care, it is urgent that these cats and kittens find homes, and quickly!

We at AAHS are holding a special adoption event on Saturday, May 31 to find homes for as many animals as possible. In addition to our Adoption Center, the Beaverdam Road shelter will be open from 10am to 4pm especially to feature foster animals and other adoptable pets.

So far this year we have been able to save every healthy, adoptable pet. Please don't let that victory come to an end - spread the word about adopting a homeless cat or kitten today! We need a successful adoption weekend - we would hate to be forced to make space for incoming animals.

If you have been considering adding a feline to your family, there is no better time. If you haven't considered it, what better reason could you have than the knowledge that you'll be saving a precious life, and enriching your own? Adopt two cats or kittens and get a discount on the second adoption fee.

You can make a lifesaving difference for a homeless pet. This weekend, please stop by the Adoption Outreach Center (Pet Supplies Plus, 12-6 Saturday and Sunday) or the main shelter (399 Beaverdam Road, 10-4 Saturday). The animals are counting on you!

This is a reminder about this Saturday's program on the Greenway. Register by emailing health@negplanning.org. Post, distribute, or forward the attached documents as you see fit!

In brief, it's a 3-mile bike ride from Dudley Park to Sandy Creek Nature Center, a quick talk on the interplay between public health and planning, a ride back to Dudley for some refreshments, and finally a brief overview of future greenway plans.

You are invited to attend a program addressing the connection between public health, transportation, and land use planning on Saturday, May 31st at 9:00 a.m. (details follow).

Public Health, Transportation, and Planning on the Greenway

* *

What does public health have to do with transportation and community planning? Find out Saturday, May 31st, 2008. The Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center, with funds from the Georgia Department of Transportation, along with the Oconee Rivers Greenway Commission, presents a program to educate the public about the link between healthy lifestyles and the built environment.

Meet at the Dudley Park/Cook & Brother Plaza Waterwheel (East Broad St. across from UGA's Chicopee building) at 9:00 a.m. with your bicycle, a helmet, and a water bottle, for a leisurely ride up the North Oconee River Greenway to Sandy Creek Nature Center. At the Nature Center, Dr. Mark Ebell (Chair, Clarke County Board of Health and Oconee Rivers Greenway Commission) and John Devine (Senior Planner, Northeast Georgia Regional DevelopmentCenter) will give an informative talk on active living, land use, and transportation. Ride back to Dudley Park for refreshments and a presentation focusing on plans for future greenway improvements in Athens. The program is scheduled to end by 11:00 a.m.

This program is free and open to the public, but participants must register by Thursday, May 29th - email health@negplanning.org. All children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Reading all of the letters to the editor from people crying foul over the proposed property tax increase leaves me scratching my head. I do not know whether to laugh or cry at what people are saying. Sure, there are programs in the Athens-Clarke County government that may be questionable to people. But I do not think I have ever seen any waste or fluff in the government offices I have dealt with over the years, and the employees are greatly underpaid compared to market worth and the state of the current economy.

I wonder what people of this area would do if they had to pay real property taxes. Yes, the taxes paid by homeowners in places like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, etc. I remember visiting my hometown (Binghamton, NY) back in the early 1990's. A house was for sale on my street for $100,000, yet the property tax was $6,000. That is real. That is costly.

My uncle, who lived on Long Island, had wanted to retire from his job, but he couldn't. Cutbacks at Grumman Corporation meant that he was unable to sell his home. So he had to keep working just to pay his property taxes.

Yes, we need to be vigilant in watching how our government is spending our money. I would rather see a property tax increase than a never ending SPLOST. At least I can deduct the property taxes on my federal return. With SPLOST, I am paying a sales tax on special interest projects that get passed in questionable ways. I am specifically thining about the school SPLOSTs which get put up for vote on non-election days.

Frankly, it is the school district which needs a lot more oversight in how they are spending our money. They waste money by having school buses pick up and drop off at every students house instead of having designated bus stops. The argument I hear is that they have to because there are no sidewalks. We did not have sidewalks where I grew up either, yet we had 1 designated bus stop that served a 20 block area. Sorry, but this has long been one of my soapbox issues here in town, especially when getting stuck behind buses stopiing every two houses.

So let's put our focus on areas that can and should be managed better and stop whining about peorty taxes that are a relative bargain compared to other parts of the United States, and of Georgia.

2008-05-27

I don't know anything else about this. For more information contact leeann at leeann@uga.edu----------------Hello, writers!

We are initiating a new group for writers to get together and share work. The group is open to all kinds of writing: poetry or prose, fiction or nonfiction, even dissertation work.

The intent of this group is to give feedback that is constructive and affirming. The method is outlined below. Depending on the size of the group, one to two members will share work at each meeting, and the group will spend about 30 minutes on each author's work. The writer is not so much receiving editing advice as she is receiving a reflection of the impact her work has on its audience. Each author decides what feedback is helpful to her and suits her piece. Membership in the group is free.

Meeting Schedule7-7:15 Get settled. Share business.7:15 First author receives feedback- Author reads through her work twice while others listen- Author asks the group questions such as:--- What words phrases stand out to you?--- What message do you get as you listen?--- Tell the story of how you felt moment by moment as you listened.--- Give a metaphor for the writing.- Listeners ask writer questions such as:--- How is this feedback for you?--- What do you want to change about your work?--- How can we help?7:45 Second author (if available) receives feedback8:15 General reflections on the process8:30 Coffee and conversation

The group will meet on the last Monday of the month, starting April 28.

Life's a Beach! Sandy Creek Park hosts its second annual Beach Party this Friday, May 23 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Activities include Pam Blanchard and the Sunny Side Up Band, sand castle building contest and much more!

2008-05-21

Russell Shearer in the Psychology Department at the University of Georgia has posted a survey for Internet users. It is for a study called "The Five Factor Model as a Descriptor of Internet Users." Wide participation is sought. Follow this link to participate.

2008-05-20

R.E.M. will be featured on "Austin City Limits" which airs on Georgia Public Broadcasting. Tune in on Wednesday, May 28 at at 9 p.m. to see performances of new songs such as "Hollow Man" and classics like "Losing My Religion." The show will repeat on May 30 at 12 midnight, June 1 at 11 p.m., and June 2 at 1 a.m. The "Hollow Man" performance is already available online.

2008-05-19

----------------UGA to host second annual conference on Women, Rock! and Politics Athens, Ga.

The Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia is hosting its second annual conference, Women, Rock and Politics, from Friday, May 30 to Saturday, May 31.

Following last year’s wonderful success (see Athens Banner-Herald, May, 19, 2007), this year’s conference brings together a great range of talks, images, and performances concerning the relationships among women and popular music, especially rock music.

The conference will begin on Friday at 4:30 p.m. with a reception and presentations in Edge Hall at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music on the University of Georgia campus. The evening will feature an opening performance by keynote speaker Gretchen Phillips and presentations by renowned scholar Fred Maus, associate professor of music theory at the University of Virginia, on the women of the B-52s; and the Girls Rock Camps Collective on “Creativity, Community and Confidence through Rock & Roll: Girls Rock Camps.”

Saturday’s portion of the conference will be at Tasty World in downtown Athens, starting with lunch at noon and will feature panels on women in hip hop, women’s experimental music, the Riot Grrl movement, and women in rock in Latin America. The conference will conclude with a keynote talk and performance by Gretchen Phillips at 6:00 p.m. For a full program please visit www.uga.edu/iws.

Keynote speaker/performer Gretchen Phillips was a central figure in lesbian rock music of the 1980s, resulting from her formation of two “lezzie rock” bands—Girls in the Nose and Two Nice Girls—in 1985. Her music has been a formidable influence on 1990s riot grrrl bands such as Le Tigre and The Butchies. Gretchen’s recent music experiments have emerged out of the newly formed band, Phillips & Driver, characterized by guitar sounds that range from a country twang to atmospheric pulses and screeches; melodious vocals unafraid to address topics of love and war inunconventional ways; and diverse moods signified by contrasting tempos and textures.

These events are free and open to the public. Edge Hall is located in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, 3rd Floor, at 250 River Rd on the eastside of campus. Tasty World is located at: 312 East Broad Street in downtown Athens, Ga. For more information contact the Institute for Women’s Studies at 706-542-2846.

Join us in friendly Five Points for an eclectic display of arts and entertainment on the front lawns of the Five Points boutiques.Paintings · Jewelry · Ceramics · Drawings · And More!Contact Kelly Beasley, 706-410-5588, or Lindsey McKinney, 706-255-4694 for more information

2008-05-16

Take a Look! Lyndon House Arts Center's latest art exhibition opens May 16. Immersion - Exploring the Depths of Watermedia incorporates techniques of watermedia that span from traditional to experimental.

The public is invited to the opening reception scheduled for Friday, May 16 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Lyndon House Arts Center.

Patrons of the Athens-Clarke County Library and others in the PINES system can now check out audiobooks from the Georgia Download Destination. The system requires use of your PINES library card and the free program OverDrive Media Console to manage the "check out" period. A download of a title will last three days before expiring, but some titles grant permission to be recorded on CD. Excerpts from the recordings are playable through Windows Media Player.

2008-05-15

I noticed a pickup truck in the north campus parking deck the other day with a magnetic sign on the door that advertised lafondadawgs.com. So naturally, I had to check that out. It turns out to the be the web page for the hot dog stand guy that sets up on Jackson Street by the cemetery. Well there you go, even the hot dog guy has a web page. I had no idea that the hot dog I occasionally get from the stand is a "Dog of Truth...Fire". I also didn't know the stand's mission, in addition to providing the Dogs of Truth, is to educate Athens on Cuba's history. I'll ask him about that the next time I go to get my hot dog.

The Athens Banner-Herald is reporting that Mesa Airlines is shutting down its subsidiary, Air Midwest. So as of this Friday, Athens will have no commercial passenger air travel available. Wow, we had commercial air service here? No way. Commercial air service, to me, means economical, timely flights that actually take off and are not consistently canceled. It means being able to get where I need to be when I need to be there. This has never been the case from Athens Ben Epps Airport. So Mesa Airlines, a company that has been trying to dump the service for some time, now can do it because they are just shuttering the company.

Unable to cope with skyrocketing jet fuel prices, not even the Federal subsidy could keep it afloat. Meanwhile, the Athens-Clarke County government continues to court other airlines to offer service from Athens, including an air shuttle to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. When will the local government officials take the blinders off and realize that such a service is not going to be viable or convenient. I am not saying that it would not be nice to clear security in Athens and hop over to Atlanta to catch a flight. I am saying that it will be the same problem we have had for years in Athens: there will be no way to make such a service commercially viable if business travelers are hog-tied to the schedules from Athens instead of when we need to travel.

It is time for ACC officials to give up the ghost. Air service from Athens is not realistic, especially in the uncertain economic times we are facing. If an airline cannot keep operating, even with a government subsidy, then the light bulb should go off. The ACC recently cut off Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to some non-profits because results were not being delivered. This same logic should be applied to all parts of the government. The Commission needs to stop wasting time and money chasing after windmills. Oh wait, windmills might provide better benefit in the long run.

2008-05-14

A new Street Scenes newsletter [link] was recently distributed to the Five Points area that provides an update to infrastructure improvement work for the spring/summer 2008 season. The water main work on South Lumpkin Street is ahead of schedule and the stormwater improvements remain on schedule. The work on both areas for this year is expected to be completed in July 2008. Some slight changes have been made to the water main work process to help minimize dust in the area.

2008-05-09

The Athens-Clarke County Library is once again hosting its popular Summer Reading Programs for all ages. Summer reading programs kick off May 21 and continue through early August.

This year’s theme for the children’s Summer Reading Program is “Catch the Reading Bug.” The Summer Reading Program for children is a great way to keep kids entertained, and it encourages reading during the summer months. “Catch the Reading Bug” is for kids up to age 11 or those finishing the fifth grade. Children may join by picking up a reading log in the Library’s Children’s Area.

Prizes provided by First American Bank and Trust Company will be used as incentives to encourage children to read. The prizes are U.S. Savings Bonds that will be awarded to three lucky raffle winners at the end of the summer. Also, participants who read a certain numbers of books will be presented with certificates and other prizes. Pre-readers can earn credit by having others read to them. When older children read to younger children, both children earn credit for the program.

“Catch the Reading Bug” programs include “Sarah’s Story” puppet show, a Greek storytelling and toga party, and a model train display and train storytime. Call the Children’s Area of the Library at (706) 613-3650, ext. 314 for more information.

Teens are also encouraged to read this summer with the Young Adult Area’s “Metamorphosis @ Your Library” Summer Reading Program for teens ages 11 to 18. Participants can win prizes for reading books and keep busy with a variety of programs.

To join the “Metamorphosis @ Your Library” Summer Reading Program, pick up a book log from the Young Adult Area. Teens who read 15 books by August 2 will receive a free t-shirt and an invitation to the “End of the Summer Party.” For more information, call the Young Adult Area at (706) 613-3650, ext. 329.

Adults are invited to explore ancient Egypt and learn about King Tut in the “Wrapped Up in Reading” Summer Reading Program.

Come by the Athens-Clarke County Library or call (706) 613-3650 for more information. All programs are free and open to the public.

For information on the Summer Reading Programs at other branches of the Athens Regional Library System, call the following locations:

2008-05-05

Some of you guys may be aware that these days I'm a chicken farmer. However, there are also a lot of challenges to this sort of small-scale personal or pet chicken-keeping. Here are a few, for starters -- literally, for starting chicks on a small scale.

1. In much of Athens, chicken-keeping is illegal. Unlike some other places, Athens doesn't distinguish between chickens on an industrial scale and a smaller number kept for more individual reasons. This is actually being looked at the moment due to a recent event -- be on the lookout for "Don't Seize Our Chickens" bumper stickers -- and the local foods movement. But meanwhile it's technically illegal to have any chicken in any residential zoning lower than RS-25. That said, chickens have been kept by many, many people in Athens for many, many years -- most with no incident. This is because most people don't keep roosters, if they're keeping chickens in town. (Note: my chickens are going to a place zoned AR as soon as they're big enough.)

2. What kind of chickens do you want? We want to eat some, and also get some eggs. Originally we thought of raising meat and egg birds, but have you seen meat birds? They mature to slaughter weight in weeks, but they aren't built for it and their legs sometimes break, they sometimes get fluid in their hearts, and a lot of them die. So, um, no. Also, what's the point in seeking an alternative to the industrial industry if you're just going to replicate it on a small scale?

3. If you buy from a commercial hatchery, very few will ship in quantities appropriate to your project. So you'll have to get 15 or 25 or whatever the minimum is. Plus, these are commercial hatcheries, and some of your chicks probably won't make it. Plus, you know, if you're raising chickens personally, do you really want to support the same folks who support the commercial chicken industry? I don't, and I like to support local people and sustainable practices. Plus, it's pretty damn depressing to open a box of dead chicks, I suspect. So I used the Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin to locate an individual farmer in Madison County, from whom I picked up the chicks Saturday. The major disadvantage of this is that only a very large commercial hatchery can sex chicks at one day of age -- but very few of them will sell you females, anyway, because those are more valued by the commercial industry. Just be aware that you'll have to give away/slaughter any roosters that you end up with if that's going to be an issue.

4. Chicks require some setup/investment. I actually bought all this stuff and then discovered that people were willing to loan it to me, but here's what you need: starter feed, a "brooder" (a small container which is secure from predators and can be heated to 70-95 degrees with a 250-watt heat lamp), large pine shavings, a waterer especially for chicks, and a chick feeder.

5. Also, they're kinda fragile and stupid and delicate. So you have to put some effort into teaching them to eat and drink, protect them, and watch carefully/intervene if "pasting up" occurs. Anyone who's raised neonatal kittens would find the work to be less, but it's definitely more complex than just getting some chickens.

The police blotter in the ABH reports that a high school student was charged with damaging government property for kicking a police car. The reason he kicked it was because the police officer drove over his foot. So what is conspicuously absent is a report of the police officer being charged with striking a pedestrian with a vehicle.

2008-05-01

Volunteer OrientationCome and learn about our new and exciting volunteer positions, including Shelter Assistant, Pet Promotions, and Grooming Specialists. We also have positions in Community Outreach and at the Spay & Neuter Center.

Our next orientation is Saturday, May 17th at 10 am. Registration is required, so click here to sign up.

I received this across my desk and thought it might be of larger interest.

--------------The Georgia Museum of Art will be closed from May 5 till July 19, 2008, for a sprinkler upgrade. We want to thank you for your patience during this time of progress and apologize for any inconvenience it may cause you. We will reopen on July 19 with new exhibitions including highlights from the permanent collection. For more information, please call 706.542.4662.